Dorchester Times: Dorchester's Missing Yearbooks

Monday, August 21, 2023

Dorchester's Missing Yearbooks

For alumni and former students of Dorchester Public School, the online collection of DPS yearbooks -- available at dorchesterschool.org -- is a great resource.

At the school's website, visitors will find nearly 75 years of school annuals, each filled with the names, faces, and memories of yesteryear.

Unfortunately, since the creation of the online yearbook section in 2013, there has always been a missing era, with no sign of the 1940-46 editions.

Of course, from 1941-45, the nation was largely focused on World War II, but we are confident that some type of publications were produced to recognize the senior classes of those years.

The fact that many alumni from these missing years served in WWII would make the addition of materials from 1940-46 a noteworthy tribute.

When the Dorchester Public School and the DHS Alumni Association teamed up to put all the DPS yearbooks on the school website, they had assistance from older alumni. It was a huge undertaking -- and expensive, costing around $4,000, according to our research. Also online is the 1981 Dorchester Centennial history book.

We're certain that every effort was made to find yearbooks or other publications from the 1940-46 yearbooks. But perhaps with the help of the Dorchester Times readership, the alumni association and school staff can put something online to recognize the DHS graduates from these years.

If you know of any publication -- yearbook or otherwise -- that recognizes the DHS senior classes 1940-1946, please contact the school at (402) 946-2781 or touch base with DHS Alumni Association leaders (Brad and Donna Havlat).

Honoring the classes of 1940-46 would be a nice touch to a great online collection of DHS history.

1 comment:

AnonymousAugust 21, 2023 at 11:59 AM
I know when we were putting this together that Earlier school records only had pictures of classes, which are stored with the annuals.
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Dorchester: A Good Little Family Town

Dorchester, Nebraska (est. population 630) is located in northern Saline county. Close in proximity to Interstate 80, Dorchester is only 25 minutes from the state capital of Lincoln (est. population 250,000) and about 55 minutes from Omaha (metro population 725,000).

Dorchester's median resident age is 37 years. In 2005, Dorchester had a median family income of approximately $35,600. The median house value was about $63,000. About 95 percent of Dorchester residents commute to work via Interstate and highways.

The village has a quality public school, which received a $4.1 million expansion and modernization in 2008; it offers a small classrooms and individualized attention. Total enrollment of grades K-12 is around 230-250 students.

Ancestries of the Dorchester area are primarily German (42.4%), Czech (24.9%), Irish (12.5%), English (5.4%), and Dutch (4.9%).

Dorchester Historical Facts

* On July 4, 1871, the railroad reached Dorchester.
* Incorporated in 1881, Dorchester's population grew from 200 to 500 by 1882.
* In 1882, Dorchester had 90 buildings, 35 of which were businesses or public facilities. Brick buildings lined both sides of Washington Avenue for two blocks.
* Dorchester's longest-running newspaper was The Dorchester Star, which was published until the late 1940s.
* By 1889, Dorchester's population is said to have reached 800, while the town housed an opera house, a two-story brick schoolhouse with a bell tower, and four churches.
* By the 1910s, Dorchester had electricity, a water tower and a fire department.
* Dorchester's main arteries, Highways 6 and 33, were graveled in the 1940s.
* Dorchester's first irrigation well was drilled on Chris Weber's farm and rural electrification was finished following WWII.

A Village with History

Dorchester is one of the "alphabet towns" on the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad line built west from Lincoln. The town site was selected for its pleasant location in the northern part of Saline County, about eight miles west of Crete. This situation is an attractive one, being on the level prairie land, midway between the West Blue River and Turkey Creek. The first named stream is three miles north, and the latter about the same distance south from the town. Dorchester was platted in 1870 and incorporated in 1881. The name "Dorchester" came from either for a suburb of Boston by that name or a town in England. No one is sure. Two of the very first settlers were James Seely and Edward McIntyre, who both made Dorchester their permanent home.

Dorchester: In The Beginning

Here is a look at Dorchester around 1890, less than a decade after its official incorporation, as documented by Andreas' History of the State of Nebraska:
* POPULATION: "About 300, and is made up of a substantial and progressive class of citizens, who are moral and industrious. ... The town grew but very little until the year 1879, for the reason that Pleasant Hill, on Turkey Creek, a short distance south, was the county seat and naturally drew a trade for quite a large scope of country."
* BUSINESS: "The business and professional interests of the town are represented by three general merchandise stores, two drug, one grocery, one furniture, two hardware, and two millinery stores, one bank, two restaurants, two hotels, three livery stables, a post office, one newspaper office, two elevators, two lumber yards, two coal yards, two blacksmith shops, two lawyers and four physicians."
* SCHOOL: "The schoolhouse is a good one. The schoolhouse was built in 1872, since which time the public schools have been continually kept up. The present schoolhouse is 24' x 40' in size, two stories high. The school is graded and consists of three departments. The house is found too small, and arrangements will soon be made to increase its size."
* CHURCHES: "There are three substantial churches."
* HOMES: "The residence portion of the village is made up of neat houses of different styles of architecture, but none of them very large."
* NEWSPAPER: "The Dorchester Star, which was established August 21, 1881, by H. C. Bittenbender, who edited it until January 19, 1882, when he sold it to Ryerson & Bullock, the present proprietors. The Star is a bright weekly paper, five-column quarto, in size, and is Republican in politics."